Val and Mark Goldstrom share a laugh with their soon-to-be adopted son Howard, middle, on the front porch of their home, Friday June 6, 2018.
Mark Goldstrom, father to three adopted sons, recalls some of his most fondest memories he has with his children, Friday June 6, 2018.
Mark and Val Goldstrom years ago met in the Air Force. Mark would work on planes alongside others in the crew, and Val would stop by to say hello.
Other crew members would tease Mark by saying that Val liked him. She did.
They were eventually married but decided to focus on their careers instead of starting a family.
From time to time, the Las Vegas couple talked about adoption, but they never acted on the thought until the day Mark saw 14-year-old Randy on “Wednesday’s Child,” a Las Vegas television show that helps foster children find homes.
Mark knew then that he wanted to be a father. It was a decision that led him to be able to celebrate Father’s Day for the first time as a father.
“I said, ‘That’s my kid,’ ” he said. “We weren’t even licensed yet. We finished the process, hoping he’d still be available — he was.”
Randy became Mark and Val’s eldest son in 2007. Two years later, the couple adopted a second son, Trace, 10.
Randy, Trace, Mark and Val were good. They had their family. They went to basketball games together. They went on family vacations.
Trace told Mark about having attended a summer camp, Camp To Belong, where he was able to visit with his older siblings whom he was separated from in foster care. Trace told his adoptive father that he wanted to continue going to the annual camp.
So, every blistering Las Vegas summer for the past eight years, Mark has volunteered at the weeklong camp, which St. Jude’s Ranch for Children operates to reunite siblings separated in foster care.
“We’re the only nonprofit in town that provides this service,” said Christina Vela, the executive director of St. Jude’s Ranch for Children. “For some kids going to camp, and the amount of time they’ll spend with their brothers and sisters at camp, is collectively the most amount of time that they’ll spend with their siblings for the entire year.”
Mark acted as a father figure for many of the foster children at the camp, including a young boy named Howard, whom he had met in 2014. Mark and Val decided to adopt Howard, who this past fall moved into the Goldstrom’s home as their youngest son.
“Now, Howard has his forever family, and again it’s through the magic of bringing people together,” Vela said, noting that most people don’t adopt teenagers or older children.
Val and Mark are a few months away from formalizing Howard’s adoption.
On a recent late Friday afternoon , the Goldstrom home is quiet. Val is working from her home office with the couple’s 7-year-old basset hound, Daisy, close to her side. Howard, 15, is playing a video game on the computer. Randy, their eldest son, is sleeping after finishing his night shift at work.
“Love is a big thing, just show them that you love them, that you care about what they do. That means the world,” Mark said.
Mark is missing Trace, who joined the Army and went to basic training on June 5, after he graduated from high school.
Mark’s eyes well up when speaking about Trace. He points out pictures of his son playing basketball, or of Trace when he first came to live with Mark and Val or pictures of Trace on family vacations.
“We always tell the kids, ‘When you act up really weird and stuff, we can always say you were adopted,’ but that can go the other way too,” Mark said.
For a brief period, Mark switched from working on airplanes to race cars. Memorabilia from the car he worked on is posted on one wall in the Goldstrom home. Mark shows the radio-controlled cars he used to race with Trace. Howard is slowly becoming more invested in the hobby.
“That one’s mine,” Howard said as he pointed to one of the cars lined up on a shelf. Small stickers reading “Vegas Strong” decorated the hood.
“Celebrating fathers for their biological children is important, and I think celebrating fathers for their role in the lives of all children and young people is really powerful,” Vela said. “Especially the ones they choose to mentor and support and do the ultimate (investment), which is to adopt them and provide them that forever family.”